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Monday, January 11, 2016

Elwyn Whitman Chambers: Dead Men Leave No Fingerprints, 1935

Elwyn Whitman Chambers (1896-1968), born in Stockton,
California, wrote eighteen novels setin San Francisco, the first of which was,
in 1928, The Coast of Intrigue. It
was a warm start, since just after the release of The Navy Murders (1932), written with Mary Strother Chambers, began
writing by jet and until the end of World War II, he published thirteen novels.
In 1946 he devoted himself mainly to the movies, going back to writing in 1953:
signed three other novels, because he took care of collaborations in television
scripts, until his death in Los Angeles.Dead Men Leave No Fingerprints
presents as a subject investigator, not a policeman like Michael Lord by
Charles Daly King or a private detective in the manner of Poirot or Philo
Vance, but one that instead comes close more to Bill Crane by Latimer and
Dashiel Hammett's Sam Spade, as ways of behaving, and that, at the same time,
resolves an investigation of classical style.

Namely, a a mystery that in the movements may appear to
be similar to a Hard-Boiled.
Stanton Lake is a private investigator who has an agency that shares with his
friend Abe Bloom. One day arrives a beautiful blonde, classic kind of femme
fatale, Hilda Haan, famous Danish actress, who, secretly to the mass media, and
counting on the support of a girl friend
that acts as a stand-in and serves to divert printing, has fled with Theodore
Raybourne. Hilda asked Lake to help her own against Theodore, because she
understood too late as he does not love her and is attracted only by her money;
in addition he holds the compromising papers which, if disclosed, would throw
the feed to the press and her private life and, consequently, her popularity
would suffer an upheaval.
Lake, along with his partner, then try to sneak by stratagem, in the house
where willy-nilly Hilda is forced to remain: pretending to have had a heart
attack while swimming in front of the house of Raybourne, and that one who was
also at sea by accident (Abe Boom) managed to save it. The Raybourne are a
powerful dynasty, and the old Raybourne Rufus, even in spite of the collapse of
part of his empire because of a housing development busted, however, is still
firmly in place. Lake, helped, is greeted in the house, including the looks
concerned and suspicious if not suspicious of the others present: Maurine, the
young wife of the old Rufus; Mrs Farley and Rae Amerton, a couple of psychics friends;
the daughter Inez with Dr. Pageot her boyfriend; and finally the Chinese butler,
Fong Woo.

However Lake should reveal who is, when someone kills
Theodore Raybourne with a heavy poker: the reason is that after Wong Foo, down,
gave the alarm, and Lake entered the chamber of Raybourne finding his smashed
skull, there next is Hilda Lane that
holds newspaper clippings, the compromising papers that held the victim, and
now is trying to destroy in a fire. After a fierce fight, she manages to knock
the detective and destroy compromising papers. But he, who is bound by an
employment relationship with the lovely Lane, must now save her from imputation of murder, thing he does immediately
, trying to dismantle her presence there in that room, in front of the old
Rufus, succeeding in part: now, dispel all doubt has to find the real murderer.
He must first identify the fingerprints found on the heavy poker: the old Rufus
is well convinced that whatever is the murderer, the death of his son should be
avenged, handing the murderer to justice. Even if it would cost the indictment
to one of the family members or the present.
All they have to make available their fingerprints, and so, in the end, the
fingerprints are compared. Twist, when, however, after that they are not
assigned to any of those present in the house (and then even to Hilda), they
are from John Royal, companion of
adventures and speculations of the old Raybourne, who nevertheless exaggerated with
embezzlement, ending at San Quentin! Is it possible he escaped from prison and
now wants revenge on the friend who accused him in court? No, because Royal
died a year before and the very old Rufus oversaw that body, embalmed, was
buried. Then how do you explain those footprints?

The deputy sheriff Catalin, the grocer that the community
of those parties elected to do the sheriff who does not know how to move, is
Lenny McManus, an acquaintance of Lake, who for many years has been the deputy
sheriff. Just Lenny, Stanton and the beautiful Hilda one night armed with
shovels, go to disinter the coffin of Royal to make sure if s him; but, arrived
on the spot, after digging, they discover that the coffin was desecrated and
the corpse is gone.
Is possible that John Royal is alive and that the corpse belonged to someone,
taking and giving his identity? It would be possible, but clashes with the
Lake’s conviction that murderer is someone instead of the house: in fact, when
Theodor was killed were all at home and very high would be the possibility that
a stranger was discovered. How did it Royal?
Now you correlate with the disappearance of the prisoner, the aggression
suffered by Lake previously: someone attacked him in the library and then if
you snuck out. It is discovered a secret hideaway, hidden in the wall, used in
the past as the armory, that friends of Rufus knew, including Royal. Is it possible
that after the murder, he has hidden himself there and only after he escaped?

However soon the self-styled John Royal is reappeared. In
fact, Stanton Lake, having no response from the beautiful Maurine, closed room,
not down to breakfast, with the cooperation of other, breaks down the door of
her bedroom and is prone on the bed, her face bluish and one of her stockings
knotted at his neck so closely for almost not to see that his node, in the
flesh swollen. The strange thing is, however, that the bedroom does not have
other outlets that the door closed from the rear, and the window, well locked
from the inside: how did the murderer to go out?
Stanton Lake manages to find a trapdoor in the closet of clothes, wondering
what it is doing there a chair: Lenny hoisted, without touching the panel, and
penetrated into the attic, he soon found another hatch, dropping in the room of
Dr. Pageot: is possible that the boyfriend of the daughter of Raybourne killed
Maurine? And why? Soon hediscovers that
the two had an affair, lived a story of sex: in fact the beautiful Maurine was
found wearing the negligee more transparent than all the transparent negligees.
She was probably waiting for her lover, who in fact admits to be gone, but only
to find her dead.
Lake, by the idea he has made, he tends to give credit to the confession by
Pageot, nothing but a bleak fortune hunter: however, without finding the way
how the murderer has gone out, he couldn’tshow the strangeness ofthe
adventurer.
Meanwhile, after an embalmed corpse was found in the sea, half eaten by
shellfish, and after that Abe was sent from Lake to obtain the dental board to
ensure that that body is or is not by Royal, a third murder occurs at that
dwelling: is found murdered, with a dagger driven into the heart, the old
Raybourne. And once again, Lake will face the shadow by John Royal, because
once again his fingerprints are found on the handle of the dagger.
But who is John Royal? Andis he dead or
alive? And if he's dead, how can be there those footprints , on the knife and
on theheavy poker?
Lake will solve the mystery and he will exonerate Pageot and Hilda Lane,
meanwhile fallen in love with the investigator.

Memorable final: Hilda begs him not to leave her, but
Stanton who also knows he is weak against her, does not want to lose his
subjectivity and become only "the husband of Hilda Lane".

And
for this he gets out, and goes to the train, without looking behind.

Hard and pure.Beautiful
novel, retains a voltage unchanged throughout its duration, which is kept very
high, thanks to a plot extremely crackling and never dull: a lot of events disrupt the investigation and until
the end you can not figure out who would be the killer, if John Royal or
another, and then how his fingerprints are finished both on heavy poker and on
the handle of the dagger.

Nice also the Locked Room, whose solution although a change of method already discovered
by Carr, is nevertheless very intriguing for the fact that to discover it, you
have to look from the outside and not from within, and from outside is not easy
do it, because you're out of a window without a balcony, high at least six
meters from the boulevard below.
The investigator could be a clone of Sam Spade: hard, sometimes even
contemptuous, that uses the hard way, for example by crushing Pageot to induce
him to talk about after the death of Maurine; weak with women, but at the same
time proud of his individuality ; and Hilda Lane, is the so-called “Femme
Fatale”, ready to lose the head to a man, but also to lose her when he instead
ardently desire her, rejects her; and Inez Raybourne, the heiress, is the
so-called “helpless woman” prey of attention of people attracted by her money,
which simulates being in love with her but then instead has a history of sex
with the girl's stepmother.

The Chinese butler is a classic, as a classic is also the
replacement of one body with another (had not for the first time experienced it
Edmond Dantes by Dumas?).

And
even the elderly husband, betrayed by his wife having sex with another young,
which in turn betrays his girlfriend very sensitive; and also the fake mediums,
which ensnares the gullible.
The corpse that disappears, may have also influenced the Latimer of The Lady in
the Morgue (1936), ie a year later than the novel by Chambers), and No Coffin
for the Corpse by Clayton Rawson (the disinterment). But in turn it could have
taken something, perhaps, from The Greek Coffin Mystery by Ellery Queen (1934) in which is unearthed a
coffin in which there should be a body embalmed; or from Into Thin Air (1929) by
Horatio Winslow and Leslie W. Quirk, in which is unearthed a body to see if
there is or not an object.
In short, a great novel, which you read passionately.

Personal Informations

I am Italian. Once I was reporter, of classical music. Since several years I collaborate with "Il Blog del Giallo Mondadori".
I wrote a lot of stories ( 1 Locked Room Novel also and 1 Locked Room
long tale, both not yet published) almost all "Locked Rooms", readable
on Sherlock Magazine Web site, among which Queen and Rawson apocryphal,
while 3 S.Holmes apocryphal have been published in paper form.
I wrote essays about E.Queen, R.King, Carr, Berkeley, Aveline,
E.d'Errico, S.S.Van Dine, N.Marsh, C.Brand, A.Christie, M.Allingham,
etc..on the blogs: "Il Giallo Mondadori", "La Morte Sa Leggere", and on
sites web: "Sherlock Holmes Magazine" and "EuroPolar".
On italian Mondadori's Blog Giallo, I wrote a history of Locked-Room
Lectures in three parts ( a fourth part is in preparation). Coming soon a my new short story, a classical locked room, will be published from an important american publishing house.I own five blogs about Crime fiction (3 at italian language and 2 at english language) and 1 of Classical Music.